Delco men plead guilty to Synthes thefts

WEST CHESTER — Two Delaware County men who stole carbide items from an East Goshen medical device manufacturing company and selling them as scrap have both pleaded guilty to theft charges and been ordered to repay thousands of dollars to the company for the stolen items.

Their arrests came in April after an extensive investigation by Westtown-East Goshen detectives into the report of multiple thefts from the Synthes plant on Goshen Parkway in East Goshen, in which officers followed the men from the plant to a scrap recycling company in Upper Darby where they sold the items for a fraction of their actual worth.

The second of the two men, David M. Gessig of Glenolden, appeared in Common Pleas Court on Tuesday before Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody, and pleaded guilty to two counts of theft by unlawful taking, a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay Synthes $18,000 in restitution.

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In November, Gustav Schestok of Essington pleaded guilty to one count of theft by unlawful taking and was sentenced to three years’ probation. As part of his plea agreement, he must pay $5,800 in restitution.

The theft investigation headed by WEGO Detective Sgt. William Cahill began April 5 when he was alerted by officials at Synthes that a large number of thefts of carbide end mills had been occurring at the plant. The end mills are used to cut and machine titanium products that are used in surgical implants.

Synthes had alerted its employees some time before that the used carbide ends were not to be taken from the plant, as they could be recycled and used again.

The company had identified Gessig, who had worked as a machinist at Synthes for 14 years, as the main culprit of the thefts. An official with the company’s human resources department said that Gessig had been seen leaving the plant at various times during his shift and walking to his car, where they believed he was stashing the mill ends.

Company officials told Cahill that they believed Gessig was taking the mill ends to Accurate Recycling, a scrap dealer, and selling them there.

Over the following two weeks, Cahill and other investigators from the department watched as Gessig would leave the plant and drive to the scrap dealer, enter with a plastic bucket, and return later to his car with a much lighter bucket.

When questioned, the manager of Accurate reported that he had been doing business with Gessig for months. He said that Gessig would sell carbide items to him for scrap and receive payments of less than $100, which meant that no paperwork would have to be filled out.

Cahill was able to collect some of the carbide that Gessig had sold, and showed it to Synthes officials, who identified it as a specific type of carbide it imports for use in its milling machines. The cost to replace the items was estimated at $5,600.

During the investigation, the company also reported that Schestok had also been identified as someone who was stealing the machine ends.

After receiving a search warrant on April 25 to look into Gessig and Schestok’s cars and home, Cahill approached Gessig at a gas station at Paoli Pike and Boot Road, where he had gone to fill up his car. When asked, Gessig admitted stealing the carbide from Synthes and selling it to Accurate.

He consented to a search of his home in Glenolden, where a WEGO detective found carbide, grinders, a scale, and packaging. Schestok was arrested later the same day. It was unclear from the affidavit filed in the case whether the two men were acting independent of one another or in concert.

Both men’s cases were prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Andrea Cardamone, who said that Synthes officials had been alerted to the plea agreements and were satisfied with them.